Panama and on and on

Hello everybody,

Again, sorry for the delay! We are in Panama City and are currently trying to figure out the car shipping situation and I am spending time with my mother.

Since our last entry much has transpired. From Samarra Costa Rica we headed south to Mal Pais/St.Theresa, a town inhabited primarily by surfers and hippies. Nothing really noteworthy took place here aside from catching some pretty good waves and after 4 days we became bored and decided to head inland to San Jose so that Logan could catch a flight to meet up with his girlfriend in Panama City. San Jose is a nondescript place - dirty, loud, and full of lecherous folk (prostitution is legal in CR) so you aren't missing much unless Vegas is simply not enough. After dropping Logan off at the airport, Alex and I headed to Manuel Antonio with a Oregonian friend acquired at the hostel in San Jose and had a great couple of days hiking/swimming, playing gin rummy, and drinking beers. While in Manuel Antonio hiking, we came across a large contingent of howler monkees that had been somewhat human-socialized (Alex will be posting pictures of this encounter shortly). We also spotted a handful of other noteworthy creatures such as Sloths, upright standing lizards, birds with big beaks, gigantic hamster-esque rodents, and day walking racoons who were employed in thievery!

Costa Rica is definitely the most touristy of the various central American countries visited thus far- and as a result is also probably the most modernized. However, despite lacking in wandering giant pigs (Guatemala), obstacle like speed bumps (Mexico, Guatemala, Belize, Honduras), dollar magnetized police check points (everywhere but CR), and 3 legged hairless dogs (everywhere but CR) we ended up having the day from hell in this modernized/tourist charged paradise. The date was December 20th and started off with a modest whiskey induced hangover that made me believe we needed to go to the Osa Pennisula (Bahia Drake) and ended with our vessel trapped in limbo in the middle of a river, two flat tires, and absolutely nowhere to sleep. Alex will upload pictures of the day so you can project, but I will simply follow that it was a very long/expensive 2 days which felt more like 2 weeks. Nonetheless, the 2 flats forced us to revamp the car (now fondly named "Richard" in honor of our friends, the Carroll brothers, dog Richard) with monster Pirelli ATR Scorpions. I dare the roads of South America to 'front on our spokes' (2Short) - Richard eats potholes for breakfast.

You ask what our Xmas was like? Alex/I spent it eating beans out of a can, surfing for 7 hours, playing dominoes and sleeping under a canopy of palm trees, stars and constellations in Santa Catalina. It was a very hearthy xmas.

By early next week we will be in Cartagena Colombia and as always 'trying to get in where we fit in' (2short). Much love.

Mike

Mike from Costa Rica

I never realized how difficult surfing, reading, relaxing and BBQ'ing can be on an individual! We are in Costa Rica (the Samara area, Pacific Coast) staying at a friends house overlooking the ocean - incredible views. Below are some random photo's of the group in Honduras/Nicaragua/Costa Rica as well as some new friends. I hope you like them.

We are going to be doing some volunteer work for a couple of weeks in Colombia, if you are interested in learning more about it email me.

Anyways, I hope you are well. We are fine.

Luvvvvvvvvvvvvv

Mike

Random Blog From Logan

Hey everyone, greetings from Leon, Nicaragua. We are in a great hostel called Lazy Bones and will most likely be chillin for a few days. If things go as planned we will be hitting up some volcanoes manana, potentially even skiing or boarding down the molten ash, should be sweet if it happens. Hope everyone had a great Turkey Day. We got to have a vegetarian one, spaghetti bolognese with soy, which is sort of an oxymoron from what we´re used to in the states. I can´t think of any time that I didn´t have a fat turkey leg in my hand since birth on that magical third Thursday of every November.
A brief update of what has happened. We left Guatamala for Honduras near Puerto Barrios with only minor issues. From there we headed to La Ceiba on the coast of Honduras, where Henkes & Seeley picked up two, small classical guitars to replace the progressively deteriorating other two. While in La Ceiba we got to see Quantum of Solace, pretty good, and planned on heading to the Bay Islands, namely Roatan the following day. Before this happened though, both Mike & Alex proceeded to get violently ill from the always reliable, Applebees. Fortunately for myself, I avoided this disaster since it turned out both of them got Ecoli from eating something there that I did not partake of. Mike and I ended up leaving for the island ourselves, leaving Alex to recoup his strength in the hostel with the plan to have him meet us there when he got to feeling better (sorry Mrs. Henkes). Later that day in Roatan is when it caught up to Mike and he had to go to the hospital in town to get back to feeling better. Being tip-top, I proceeded to go out to find a good bar to watch the Honduras v Mexico game, which Honduras won 1-0. There was a great party celebrating the victory and I definitely embibed way too much. I ended up getting to know a few locals there and went to one guys house to chill out before heading to the dance club. While there, things got a little sketchy as the owner started doing massive amounts of cocaine from the end of a dinner fork in the kitchen as countless other guys kept coming over looking to score some for themselves. Turns out I managed to make friends with the local drug lord, which probably explains why he had such a nice place. Anyway, we ended up leaving there after 30 min or so and went to the dance club where it was 80´s night and I managed to snake away from the drug czar as quckly as I could, not wanting to be associated with their wackness. I met some other people and hung out with them until I could no longer see straight. I stumbled home and passed out, the following day being spent nursing my hangover.
Nothing much else happened in Roatan, it rained every day. I did go Scuba Diving, which was cool. We met some more cool travellers, namely Natalie from Bristol England and Lisa from Atlanta, GA but living in Miami. We left Roatan after 5 days or so, the final day being spent watching the overrated Giants defeat the Cardinals. After getting back to Ceiba from Roatan we headed out the next morning at the but crack of dawn to get to the Nicaraguan border, which we managed to do. One hiccup happened while crossing the border. Since we didnt have any money other than my travellers checks, I used one to exchange with one of the guys who deals in money transfers. He gave me a terrible exchange rate and what made it worse is that I had to write my passport number on the back of the check. Fearing identity theft I chose to put down a fake number, not a smart idea. After handing him the check he pestered me to show him my passport so he could verify what I wrote down. I refused, so he got the chief border official to get it from me, and after he saw it, he said some things in Spanish that made me thin kI could be headed for a jail cell. Fortunately, Mike calmed everyone down, I got another check for the same amount and wrote the passport number down with them watching. We proceeded to get the hell out of dodge and stayed the night in Chinandega. The next couple days were spent on the beach in northern Nicaragua where we ate our vegetarian Thanksgiving. Bringing us to here, Leon, where we plan on enjoying the party scene this weekend, hoping for more good stories.

Living La Vida Loca

Hi -

Sorry for the delay for those of you tracking us, life on the road has distracted us from taking an active interest in relaying our experiences back to you - even though we miss you all. So far things have gone smoothly ie: no major heists, police bribes, debaucherous events etc. . From Mexico City we headed south to Chicahau and then to Porto Escondido where we made a few noteworthy friends (pictured below) and immersed ourselves in varying degrees of hearthdom. After 5 days in that area we headed northeast through the Yucatan (San Cristobal, Palenque, and Chetumal). From Chetumal we headed south into Belize to a town called Dangriga and from Dangriga to Key Whipray off the southern coast of Belize near Placencia. The key was an exceptional experience as I was attacked by a hostile needle fish which, irritated by my fishing lure firmly hooked in its mouth, decided revenge on my leg and hand was necessary (unfortunately he suffered a worse fate). After our time on the key we promply sped off to Guatemala and here I am writing you from Tical.

On a final note, I'd like to give a shout out to my Belgium brother Matt, nice barrel bro, his girlfriend Camille, Sabrina, Charlie and Kyla, and Sev. We miss you guys.

And everybody back home, we miss you too.

Mike

Mexico City to Belize

Here is the next phase of our grand adventure. From Mexico City we will head south to Oaxaca to celebrate Dia de Muertos, and from there will head to Puerto Escondido on the Pacific Ocean for a couple days of a little sun and surf. After we leave the beach, we will head to San Cristobal de las Casas via Tuxtla Gutierrez. After checking out San Cristobal and the beautiful Mexican State of Chiapas we will head to the epic Mayan Ruins of Palenque, arguably the most important of all the excavated Mayan ruins known to date. From Palenque we will head eastward to the northern boundary of Belize. All in all, this could take a week and a half to two weeks, giving us essentially 5 months more of great travel from Belize on. More pics to come.

Photos...

Sorry for the delay...

Hi,

We are safe and sound in San Miguel De Allende, a beautiful city north of the capital, Mexico DF. We will be back with pictures and more information as soon as we get settled manana...

Mo-jitos, mo-problemos

Mike

Vegas, a slice of American Pie

Lot of driving has been done in the first two days. I want to say thank you very much to the Columbels (pictured above) for allowing Mike and I to store our stuff on their beautiful ranch in Grass Valley. Mr. Columbel hooked us up with a tool box for our car which we hopefully won't need to use and Mrs C. makes some phenomenal breakfast muffins which powered us through a good 10 hours of driving. Final destination for our first night? Las Vegas... a true slice of American pie, wrapped in a nice warm box of sin and evil. We hit the road early in the morning and put Vegas in our rearview mirror. Thank God.

Leaving Las Vegas...pronto

Hi-

We just arrived in Phoenix, AZ - home of Logan Wilson. We are staying here for the night and then off to El Paso, TX and then Chihuahua Mexico by Thursday. Alex and I had a good couple of days driving from the Lake Tahoe area through the east side of the Sierra mountains and then into Death Valley, Vegas etc.. It was a reminder of how big, and beautiful, California is. The pictures are from various places, I will let you guess where...

MSeely